Fitz!!!!
Fitz, Mr. Fitzgerald, after 12 years at Kieran's Irish Pub in beautiful downtown Minneapolis right across the street from the historic Sheik's theater (plagiarizing John of the Tim Malloys), will put in his last night as manager on Saturday, Feb. 18th. Probably few of my friends appreciate it, but many many regulars know and understand the drama of that statement. I feel in funeral-voice and say he will be missed. Omnipresent weekend nights, Fitz symbolized the best of my pub. And to think I'll never again hear him cadgered to the stage by The Tim Malloys for his deep sonorous intonation of "The Auld Triangle" or "Isn't It Grand?" well... it's sad, and that's all. I'm normally a proponent of change in all things, but not to my downtown Irish pub! As one of the bartenders earnestly remarked to me tonight, "I don't know how the place will make it without him."

Kieran's is the one little bit of continuity I have in life. I don't have any specific plans right now, but I think it's inevitable that I'll spend Saturday night down there, taking a few pictures, drinking Guinness and Jameson. I've heard many a singer, and they all have their strengths, but I know as a truism that none beyond Fitz could bring out the full pathos of these lines:

Well look at the coffin, with its silver handles
Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody well dead?
Now let's not have a sniffle, let's have a bloody good cry
And always remember, the longer you live
The sooner you'll bloody well die.